I’m Not Coming in Today

Ten years ago, if you said to your fellow workers “I’m not coming in today” they would assume that you had lined up a round of golf or you planned to spend some extra time in bed. That’s not the case in today’s connected work. More of us are working from home to get through some work or because we want to swap the time spent commuting with time spent with the kids.

Improvements in home and mobile broadband have definitely had an influence on this trend but, in this edition of BTalk, Rebekah O’Flaherty, an executive director at Telstra, says employer attitudes have also played a part.

Telstra commissioned research of 2,034 working Australians and found that a quarter are spending five hours or more a week working outside the workplace. Fifteen percent are spending 10 or more hours a week, which is the equivalent of 13 full working weeks a year.

There’s still a way to go though — 40 percent of employers said they did not allow staff to work outside the office and 1 in 5 of those said it was because they didn’t trust their employees to work as hard. The Jurassic boss is still out there!

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ABOUT PHIL

Phil Dobbie is a broadcaster and writer, with a wealth of business experience behind him too. He was a partner in an ad agency, he's been the marketing head at various technology companies and ran the Australian operation of the British Tourist Authority.

But his real love is the creation of content - as a journalist for ZDNet and others. He likes to spend time behind the microphone, creating radio shows and podcasts - he's done thousands of them, for CBS, National Australia Bank, BBC and CommsDay.

He's available to present radio shows and produce podcasts. Or any other exciting projects that come along.